Transcription

Tynron Parish School | Dumfriesshire.

Novr. 20— 1865.

Sir.

Here in the solitude of a remote glen your noble work has reached me and is another
proof to me that the Age of Romance has not perished but that Truth is indeed stranger
than Fiction. You have given articulation to a thousand things
lying dumb within me. When the Vestiges was attacked by friends and foes I used
to skirmish in its defence (vide my letter
pub. by Lewis then Ed. of the Leader) but
never at least within the present century did I expect so scientific an exposition of
the grandest general facts—of the deepest truth—yet presented to the
human mind to contemplate. Never before have I conceived so clearly the wonderful
relation of the individual to the august whole. Those dim ages when nature was silently
strewing on her barren shores the dust of future continents and making out of her dead
organisms quarries from which Ionic & Doric columns should be wrought are no
longer in imagination spectral gleams but wear rather all the interest of history. I am
a Man, said the Roman, and everything human has an interest for me. I a humble student of that Nature with which we are all so strangely knit and
everything natural has an interest for me. The comparative anatomy of brain or
pelvis—a thousand things hard to understand—hard to
attract—have now by a light which never before shone on sea or land assumed a
meaning and an interest which never attached to them before. Newton's ocean of wonder on
whose shore he gathered shells seems no longer a dark unnavigable sea crested with
howling breakers. Here and there through its awful bosom the
strong vision with which you have supplied us enables us to see at least that there are
other islands whose conditions are explicable by our own. It was a grand moment in the
history of discovery when Lord Rosse was able to stand at one end of his magnificent
tube and command the belt of Orion to swim forward millions of leagues nearer him as it
were through unfathomable Space. Grander still was that hour
when using the plumb-line of generalization you enabled us to dip back into the far Past
and bring it home to our hearths and our hearts. Wisdom says the inspired man dwelt with
the Creator ere he laid the foundations of the world. By wisdom, toil, patience,
perseverance the race has arrived at a point when a foremost man here and there looking
back from the amazing pinnacle, can construct a chart of the lands over which Life has
travelled and of the epochs through which it has progressed, and then spreading his
wings in flight can conduct us through those unvisited regions until we stand like
archangels at the gates of morning and at the Creation of rock of river and of hill,
& of the tenants which therein are.

Some strictures were lately passed on your hypothesis by the Duke of Argyll. I endeavoured to point out where his Lordship was at fault. Of some of my objections to his criticism he took notice but to
other of my objections he was silent. Out of that communication there is only one
suggestion which I think is worth transmitting to you, but if the smallest scintillation
of mine is acceptable for the light which you have shed on me you are welcome.

His Lordship (vide Good Words 1865) is puzzled to understand why
there is so much beauty in the world—beauty in the shell—beauty in
the flower—exquisite beauty, wonderful patterns of colour, in the plumes of
humming birds. Then he proceeds to account for it not on your hypothesis but on the
hypothesis that beauty affords a direct pleasure to its creator, remarking that your
hypothesis is not yet wide enough to treat this subject. Now I have no objection to the
Creator being delighted with beauty and making it to please himself, but not being taken
in to his confidence at the creation of it, I cannot give an opinion on the
subject.

But to return to observation. Does his Grace deny all sense or love of beauty in the
brutes? (To this query he returns no answer) Comte says the religion of brutes is the
reverence gratitude and obedience which they display towards their masters. If dogs be credited with religion why should birds be denied all
aesthetical faculty? Birds like benighted Africans are fond of glittering pieces.
Witness how larks in France are caught by twirling for them. The gorgeous Birds of
Paradise are extremely attentive to their plumage and exceedingly sensitive concerning
its cleaness &c &c His Grace points to the savage as
an example of the width of range of the love of ornament, and
Carlyle suggests that rather than the desire of comfort the love of ornament was the
first step towards clothes. Strange if a passion diffused
throughout all humanity should have no counterpart in other regions of life. Beauty like
song is developed in the male chiefly at the breeding season. If the female give
preference to the male of gaudiest hue or richest plumage it will be a chance for the
preservation of such. The question propounded concerning the beautiful in Nature is I
grant wider than this answer—but I think this answer ought not to be forgot in
favour of your hypothesis.

I am, | Sir, | Yours most respectfully, | Jas. Shaw.

Charles Darwin Esqre. F.RS.

I had yr address as given in a letter to the Athenaeum but have laid it aside therefore
I have taken the liberty of sending this on to your publisher. J.S.

First published anonymously, The vestiges of the natural history of
creation ([Chambers] 1844) presented a continuous, progressive view of development
in accordance with natural laws and divine purpose. The work gave rise to extensive
public debate, and successive editions were published in the 1840s and 1850s responding
to criticisms. On the controversial reception of Vestiges and the speculation
about its author, see J. Secord 2000. For CD's assessment of the book,
see Correspondence vols. 3 and 4, Correspondence
vol. 5, letter to T. H. Huxley, 2 September [1854],
and the `historical sketch' added to the third and subsequent editions of
Origin.

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f3 4939.f3

George Henry Lewes was one of the founders and editors of the Leader, a
radical weekly journal published in London (DNB; see also
J. Secord 2000, pp. 483--4). Shaw's letter appeared in the
24 September 1853 issue of the journal, in response to a
lengthy review of the tenth edition of Vestiges by Lewes (Lewes 1853).
Shaw defended the view that `the progression (of animal life)' was `the result of an
aspiration towards new and superior fields of existence' (see R. Wallace
ed. 1899, pp. lii--liv).

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Shaw refers to a famous line from the play The self-tormentor, by the Roman
dramatist Terence: `homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto' (77).

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Shaw alludes to the remarks of Isaac Newton, which were published in his memoirs
(Brewster ed. 1855, 2: 407): I do not know what I may
appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the
sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a
prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before
me.

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f6 4939.f6

William Parsons, third earl of Rosse, designed and constructed large reflecting
telescopes, and made detailed observations of nebulae (DNB).

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In his article `The reign of law' in the religious weekly Good Words,
George Douglas Campbell, eighth duke of Argyll, had criticised CD's theory of natural
selection for failing to explain adequately the beauty and variety in nature
(G. D. Campbell 1865, p. 231): The evidence is indeed abundant, that ornament and variety are provided
for in nature for themselves and by themselves, separate from all other use whatever.
Any theory on the origin of species which is too narrow to hold this fact, must be
taken back for enlargement and repair. Campbell had made the same
criticism in his address to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on
5 December 1864 (G. D. Campbell 1864). For
a discussion of Campbell's address and CD's response, see the letter from Charles Lyell,
16 January 1865 and nn. 6--11, and the letter to
Charles Lyell, 22 January [1865] and nn. 5--14.

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No published reply by Shaw to
G. D. Campbell 1865 has been found; however,
Campbell is listed as a correspondent of Shaw's (R. Wallace ed. 1899,
p. xxiv).

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Shaw refers to G. D. Campbell 1865, pp. 227--32;
see also n. 7, above. In an undated autobiographical note, Shaw remarked that
he had written this letter to CD without having read the discussion of sexual selection
in Origin (R. Wallace ed. 1899, pp. lv--lvi).

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In his most extended discussion of the origins of religion, the French philosopher
and founder of positivism, Auguste Comte, drew an analogy between the love and devotion
felt by domestic animals for their human masters, and the worship of gods and angels by
humans (Comte 1851--4, 1: 496). Shaw is described as being `for a great many
years a pronounced Positivist' (R. Wallace ed. 1899, xxii). On the
reception of Comte's writings on religion in Britain, see
T. R. Wright 1986.

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Campbell referred to the `habits of the rudest savage', who covered `with elaborate
carving the handle of his war-club', as illustrating the universal love of ornament
(G. D. Campbell 1865, p. 230).

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In Sartor Resartus, Thomas Carlyle wrote: `The first purpose of Clothes, as
our Professor imagines, was not warmth or decency, but ornament' ([Carlyle] 1838,
p. 37).